Telephone cable is typically a package of plural individual conductors having their own insulating sleeve or coating. This insulation normally is a polymeric material. The individual insulated conductors (wires) are combined into a bundle around which is disposed a covering layer of relatively heavy duty insulating material in order to provide protection from mechanical damage, corrosion or other environmental hazards. Thus each cable can carry numerous telephone "lines".
There are many instances when it is desirable to form a splice with the individual wire members of a telephone cable to make a new circuit when the cable is in service in a manner that does not disturb that service and then detach one leg of the splice formed by the old cable. This might be done in order to replace a length of old cable or to make connection with new equipment.
Frequently these splices are made by what the art refers to as Y splices using specially adapted splice connectors of the MS.sup.2 or SECS types. These provide means for making splices with the usual cable bundle of 50 individual wire conductors to form the Y splice. Then one leg of the Y is detached without interrupting service. Heretofore, the practice has been to detach the old circuit with conventional wire cutting equipment, typically metal snips or tool steel diagonal cutters. In order to do this, the closely spaced wires must be carefully separated and individually cut as near the splice connector as possible. Simultaneous cutting of multiple conductors is not possible because the metal tool will cause a short circuit between one or more pairs of conductors and disrupt service by causing the lines they carry to be non-usable or "go off the air". Even when the wires are individually cut, accidental contact of the cutting tool with a previously cut wire can still result in the short circuit condition. As a result, extreme care is demanded causing the operation to be a very time consuming one.
Similar problems exist in other areas. For example, there are occasions when connection is made to a new computer before disconnection from the old in order to maintain continuous data processing or other service by the computers. If short circuits are caused in serving the old connections this can cause service interruption.
From the foregoing, it can be seen that it would be a useful advance in the art to provide a means for rapidly severing multiple conductors when they carry a current without causing a short circuit. Accordingly, one object of this invention is to provide an improved means for cutting or severing plural conductors while they are in service.
Another object of this invention is to provide a process by which plural conductors can be severed while in use.